Is Genesis Historical?

Whoever wrote Genesis it is obvious that he intended his work to be understood as history. This may not be 'history' in the modern analytic sense of the word, but he seem intent that the persons he named actually once existed and lived and said what he reported they did. The main difficulty with the historical reliability of Genesis has more to do with the Pre-Patriarchal Narratives, i.e., Chaps 1-11, and especially with Chaps 1-3

The answer to the question whether Gen 1 & 2-3 as a whole, and Adam and Eve in particular, are historical or not depends, of course, on what we mean by historical.1 If 'history' is defined in the modern sense as a descriptive-analytical report of what had happened in the past that is open to investigation in a way that its claims may be verified or falsified, then it clearly is not for the simple reason that there were no humans around to witness what happened and to report it.2 Though the three chapters take the form of a narrative, they are also framed in heightened prose (not quite poetry, but more than straight-forward prose) that suggest they were never intended to serve as a historical record in the first place. Some commentators have used the adjective 'prehistorical' or 'protohistorical,' even 'metahistorical,' to describe these chapters. Whatever we call it, this also means that the facts of the events in the two accounts are not open or available to human investigation. We can, e.g., ask, "What was the nature of the light that suffused the first three days when the sun was not yet make to shire in the sky?" but we have no way to answer the question. We can ask, "How tall was Adam?" or "How much shorter (or taller) was Eve compared to Adam?" We can ask a lot of other questions, but we cannot answer them except as conjectures, speculations. In this sense Gen 1 & 2-3 are not historical; they do not lend themselves to such exploration.

At any rate, the author of Genesis, and his audience, certainly would not have thought of them as history the way we do. We are—by the fact of our modern education—cultural heirs of the Enlightenment; the ancient Israelites were not. Life in ancient history was generally tough enough so that there was little time for such intellectual pursuits. History, if they thought about it at all, served a more practical purpose: why do we live like this? Why do we observe the Sabbath? Why do we not eat pork when the Philistines feasted so gustily on them down in Ashdod? We should not be surprised, of course, if they asked if Adam and Even were tall or short, and etc, (they would have been as curious as we are) but if they did, they would have thought of Adam and Eve as flesh, bone and blood, just like they themselves were. That would have been the meaning of the term 'historical' for them. There was no need or reason to think otherwise. Given the intellectual opportunities and climate of the times, no other option was needed and none probably occurred to them. And if anyone had suggested other alternatives (such as modern theologians do with their 'literary Adam,' 'genealogical Adam,' etc) they would certainly have been very puzzled about what rubbish that person was talking about.

When the ancient Israelites heard the scribes read Genesis to them it was, most of all, the Word of God—more specifically the Torah, the Instructions of God—that they heard. Adam and Even were then 'historical' in the sense that they (Adam and Eve) and them (the Israelites) shared a common past which explains why the Israelites were what they were and lived the way they did. But most of all Genesis was revelation. Revelation did not, and does not, depend on human witnesses or any of the verification methods that humans could devise to affirm their truthfulness. They depended only on one's relationship with God, i.e., the extent to which they trusted Him to deal with, and to speak to, them truly and honestly. As revelations Genesis was what God wanted them to understand was Adam's and Eve's past relationship with Him and—sharing a past with them (Adam and Eve)—the kind of relationship the Israelites therefore had with Him. As such, Genesis related the essential background against which the Israelites must now relate to Him as individuals and as a nation. There is, therefore, a 'history' between Adam and Eve and the Israelites, and Gen 1 & 2-3 (quite apart from anything else we may learn from them) explained what it was. That 'history,' in other words, was 'theological' in its intention, not scientific. Genesis was intended to show the Israelites how they were to live with Him, and not, e.g., how to do biology.

It is perhaps noteworthy that while the OT treats Adam and Eve as 'historical' in the sense of a clear and undeniable shared past and roots the genealogy of the human race (and esp., the nation of Israel) from them, it otherwise has little interest in the couple. Eve is not mentioned in the OT again after Gen 4 (altogether she is mentioned only twice in the OT, and twice more in the NT). Outside of Gen 2-3, Adam is mentioned 6× in genealogical contexts and only once, in Hosea 6:7, where his rebellion against God is referred to.3

This distinction between how we understand 'historical' now and how the Old Testament and the ancient Israelites did is particularly important because failure to do so may throw us into spiritual vertigo when confronted with the new evidences emerging from the last two and half decades of research in human evolution especially as it is informed by the findings in genetics, embryology and paleontology. The evidence for the evolution of life on our planet is now so overwhelming it makes the fact of our evolution impossible to deny, unless we are prepared to surrender our intellectual integrity.

In an article in which he brought together the findings from studies of present day human diversity and genetic mutation rate culled from the DNA of thousands of human samples, Dennis Venema has argued, e.g., these can only be accounted for if the ancestral population size from which all humans derived have to be around 10,000 persons.4 Does this mean, therefore, that Adam and Eve, e.g., are not real historical persons? Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight think so, and have written a fascinating book summarizing the findings and exploring what this means for a biblical understanding of Adam and Eve. While I appreciate Scot McKnight—no mean biblical scholar—has had to say, I think he overstates the case that the

category of 'historical Adam' is an anachronism with respect to our text [i.e., Gen 1-3] because (1) it comes from the modern world of science, history, anthropology, biology, and genetics, and it also is accomplished by the quest to see if what the Bible says about the past can be proved true (and therefore believed as true); (2) any talk of the 'historical Adam' is steeped in the theological conversation about original sin, which is not present in Genesis 3, and (3) the historical, biological, and genetic Adam and Eve are not, strictly speaking, what the writers of Genesis 1-3 were focused on."5

Point 1 is questionable and cannot be ascertained to be the case, while Point 2 is true only to a certain point. Point 3, I think, puts the finger right on the spot of the matter. Whatever may be the conclusion we eventually come to, it can be said that, for most people the rest of Scripture would make little sense if they were not. The question is what does that sense consists of exactly. One of the greatest difficulties biblical theologians and Bible teachers have is to get people to read the Bible without them (the people) dragging their doctrines into the texts of Scriptures. We will have more to say about "original sin" and "the Fall" elsewhere. At this point it is perhaps enough that we be aware of the assumptions we bring with us when we ask the question if Gen 1-2 and Adam and Eve are historical.

Resources:

Albert Mohler & Bryan Chapell, "Were Adam and Eve Really Historical Figures?" The Gospel Coalition, US. 10 March 2017.
Podcast 56.08 mins N (Open on Phone)